Day of Adulthood

With Anna's help, they were able to defeat all the demonic beasts in the last wave. Thanks to Anna, there were only light injuries mostly caused by carelessness. The injured were taken to the field hospital and Roland could swear they were even smiling which made him have an irritated look on his face while glaring at them.

"Nana is no attraction for you to just go casually look at. If I will find out anyone who injured themselves just to meet her and thus bother her...I will make sure you will have a real reason to meet her." Roland announced while still glaring at the injured recruits.

"Eek! Y-yes, Your Highness!" The injured recruits saluted before quickly running off to safety.

"Miss Anna, thank you for helping us!" The other recruits turned to Anna with grateful expressions and bowed to her since she wasn't part of the army.

"Eh?" Anna seemed in disarray with so many people bowing to her in gratitude just because she used her powers she for a long time considered as evil.

"See? The power of witches can be controlled and they don't just attack anyone on sight like those beasts. Their powers can be used to help us survive and even prosper, after all, these muskets were made with the joint effort of me, Anna, and local blacksmiths! If Anna wouldn't have arrived, we would definitely have to dig a few graves. If not for our little angel Nana, we would have many injured men which would hinder their efficiency and even aim. They are just like us, there might be bad but also good witches but it's unfair to hunt them all, most of them are just innocent women who wouldn't mind lending their powers to help us." Roland said, nodding his head to Carter and Iron Axe and they understood his intentions. They quickly run off to get the materials to repair the wall.

"His Highness is right...To be honest, after this ordeal and that "training"...I even feel like they are kind of harmless." One of the recruits said in a slightly joking manner.

"Well, they aren't exactly harmless but if I had to choose, I am more afraid of His Highness than a witch."

"Yeah? And you feel that way despite not being together in the same section with him, if you saw how quickly he slew one of the wolves with just a dagger, you would probably piss your pants."

*giggle* Anna started giggling, hearing the recruits talking.

"Alright, there is no time to rest! Go help the others with repairing that hole inside the wall." Roland said with an irritated expression but he knew that after such a big victory, there was almost no space for discipline that's also why he let them talk like that until he felt embarrassed by their talks.

"Understood, Your Highness!" The recruits quickly recovered and saluted to Roland before running off, leaving two of them alone, well if we aren't counting hidden Nightingale in the shadows.

Roland looked towards the wall and even though he saw that most of the recruits were already spent for the day, their faces were saying something else. The mood among them was truly great since no one died yet.

"It seems like your words held the truth. Your recruits truly accepted Anna and if I were to say...rather easily. They didn't seem much surprised, did you tell them of her existence beforehand?" Nightingale appeared and asked.

"I told you, convincing locals here won't be that hard, the real challenge will be cities greatly influenced by the church. Still, I believe the church isn't that clean, and if I want to have any dirt on them, I will need to meet your friend. Also, I have never told anyone about Anna's existence as a witch, did it perhaps offend you how easily they shrugged Anna's identity off?" Roland replied before asking with a taunting smile.

"Shocked is a much better word...anyway, Anna, your Day of Adulthood is nearing. I reckon you have only a few days left." Nightingale said with a serious expression and Anna just nodded her head, clearly not afraid of what's to come.

'If His Highness's theory is right, I shouldn't feel any pain and if it truly works, we can save a lot of other people like me.'

"I believe in Your Highness!" Anna looked at Roland with a warm look in her eyes and said with a smile.

Her words slightly confused Nightingale but she didn't think much of them. Originally, Roland wanted to tell this information to Nightingale right after confirming it but he changed his plans. If she is going to take him to their hideout, he needs to have some bargaining chip. He wasn't naive enough to think that all the witches there would be willing to peacefully talk with him.

"Thank you, I also believe in you that you will prevail over this demonic torture." Roland nodded his head and headed to the field hospital together with the two of them to check on Nana.

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"Your Highness!" Nana came running to Roland after treating the last person.

"How are you Nana? Aren't you tired from working so long every day?" Roland asked with a smile while stroking her head.

"N-not at all, Your Highness! I am glad I can use my powers to help plus everybody treats me nice here!" Nana replied with a bright smile, nothing like the girl who was first afraid to even look at the blood.

Roland found the stroking of Nana's hair to be quite a comfortable feeling so he subconsciously continued doing so without asking if the other party isn't uncomfortable...

"Hehe" And judging by her closed eyes and a comfortable smile on her face, it seemed like Nana truly wasn't uncomfortable.

"Hmm" Anna's quiet growl woke Roland up from his daydreaming who stopped what he was doing to Nana and looked towards Anna to see her pouting while looking at him in silence.

'...' Roland suddenly felt awkward and slightly embarrassed, he didn't know what to do so he just put his hand on top of Anna's head.

"You did a great job today too, Anna!" Roland said with a smile and Anna slowly nodded her head with closed eyes and a bit of red painting her cheeks.

"Heh" Nightingale only smirked upon seeing Roland cornered like this.

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A few days passed by peacefully, giving recruits enough time to fix the wall and to also rest a bit. Tonight, Anna was supposed to come of age. Roland instructed her during the day to practice her magic and before the night, she is to completely deplete her magic power. Anna did as Roland instructed and she took it a bit too far and almost fainted in the evening when she wanted to deplete all her magic power.

Right now, Anna was lying on her bed with Nana, Nightingale, and Roland on her side.

"I will be fine." Anna said with a smile while looking at Roland before redirecting her eyes to Nightingale.

"You better be, I forgot to scold you for that time when you helped us defeat those demonic beasts." Roland said, causing Anna to giggle and making the others smile a bit. His words completely changed the heavy atmosphere inside the room.

"Well, I don't feel anything so I guess I am going to sleep since I am tired from today's practice." Anna said with sleepy eyes.

"Why would you practice your magic on the day of your adulthood? Why would you let her do something so dangerous? She needs to be strong at that moment." Nightingale asked, completely confused why Roland didn't let her rest for today.

"I practiced out of my own volition. Y-your Highness, can I ask something of you?" Anna said with a tired smile before turning her head to Roland and asking with a slightly uncertain tone.

"Go ahead, I will probably allow you anything at that state." Roland said with a helpless smile while scratching the back of his head.

"Then I won't hold back, please hold my hand until I fall asleep, Your Highness." Anna said, slowly closing her eyes.

Once she felt Roland's warm hand holding hers, a peaceful smile appeared on her face as if she wasn't about to experience something that has killed several witches already.

"Once you wake up in the morning, I will have a gift prepared for you." Roland said, gently stroking her hand with his thumb.

'How could she even sleep peacefully during the demonic torture...' Nightingale thought, feeling like Roland is being too positive but she didn't dare to interrupt this moment between them. After seeing how gentle Roland was treating her, she fully understood why Anna wanted to remain here no matter what.

"A book?"

"Maybe...you will have to find out for yourself." Roland said, giving her a teasing grin she couldn't even see but she probably could imagine it due to his tone.

"Haha, understood, Your Highne-ss" Anna's expression brightened even more after not hearing him deny it but she barely managed to finish the sentence before she fell asleep while tightly grasping Roland's hand.

'Despite the difficulties of not being in the very advanced era, this life is much better than my previous one. It's a really strange feeling when you care for someone and they care for you, however, I can't say I dislike it.' Roland thought, sitting on the edge of Anna's bed while gently stroking her hand that was so unwilling to let go of his hand.

It was at that precise moment when Roland's heart felt the warmth like never before, his eyes widened before turning his head away from Anna.

*Cough!* *Cough!* Roland started coughing aloud while covering his mouth with his free hand.

"Your Highness?!" Both Nightingale and Nana exclaimed with shocked expressions when they saw blood on his hand when he stopped coughing.

"I...don't feel very good." Roland muttered before falling unconscious on the bed next to Anna with his lower body still on the ground.

Nightingale quickly put his legs on the bed before trying to find any signs of poisoning while Nana was trying to heal him with her powers but...

"Wait, stop, Nana!" Nightingale suddenly put her arm in front of Nana to stop while looking at Roland's body who was still holding Anna's hand.

"Why?!" Nana was slightly panicking.

"Please trust me!" Nightingale said and this seemed to calm her down a bit.

'Anna's magic power is being...attracted to his hand?!' Nightingale thought with a dumbfounded expression from what she was seeing in front of her. She was able to see even a flash of green light in Roland's body just like that day when he was hunting with Iron Axe.